


New Beginnings

by redjaded (timeheist)



Series: The Redjay [10]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-21 01:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9525869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeheist/pseuds/redjaded
Summary: Sometimes you need to ask for help...





	1. A Proposition

“So you’re still calling yourself the Seeker?”

Rodageitmososa tipped her head onto one side, playing with a feather that, along with her auburn-fringe-in-need-of-a-cut-since-it-was-nearly-longer-than-the-rest-of-her-hair, had fallen in front of her face. After a second she caught herself, letting the soft red plume drop from her fingers and smiling to herself, all of this in a second. She was behaving like a schoolgirl with a crush – which was just weird, since she still thought of Al- the Seeker as a Time Tot, and let’s not get started on her opinions of his father – all fingers and thumbs and stupid questions. It was probably what came from agreeing to do a favour for the Doctor, and for Jack. They were both insatiable flirts and impossible to say no to, in their own ways. And Roda, if nothing else, was still a Time Lady.

“I am.”

Roda winced. He wasn’t a child anymore, she knew that. It was even more obvious considering he'd regenerated since she last saw him. He was a redhead - oh, the Doctor would be jealous - and had picked up some amalgamation of the Doctor's and Jack's styles over the years, it seemed. And a nice coat. But since she’d never had a Time Tot of her own, and she’d been giving Alexander – damn it, she would call him Alexander, at least in her mind – lessons in Gallifreyan history for a good while, she’d almost come to think of him as a proxy. If something were to happen to him, she was sure she would fight that threat almost as hard as his father, mother, uncle – the Doctor – or Jack would do.

Perhaps, she reasoned, she just didn’t have anything else to fight for. Jack had convinced her that yes, the twenty first century might be in need of a Robin Hood figure, but if that figure was Roda then he wouldn’t be able to continue protecting and covering for her, so that was out. And with her TARDIS grounded for the time being – the Master had done a number on her during The Year That Never Was, it had taken over a year before she could fly again. Even now she was more delicate than she used to be and had gotten damaged in a storm too far from anywhere Roda could get the parts. The Doctor was too busy with all the usual problems to spare a lift for now – she had been doing little more than returning to her part-time position with Torchwood. And right now, with nothing going wrong in Wales, she was simply lying on her back in a hammock trying to read a book and convince herself she would get those parts soon and she wasn't bored at all when her TARDIS had let Alex in without complaint.

“I still think of you as Alex. Old habits die hard. While you’re here do you want a drink?” Alex paused, then shrugged and nodded. Rauda swung out of her hammock, tossing the book – The Final Problem, signed by Sir Conan Doyle himself – back into her place as though asking it to save her a spot, and folded her arms across her chest. “Good. I have a proposition for you.”

Roda rather supposed that Alex had come here to ask a favour or the likes, too, but whatever he was after, she would probably need a functional TARDIS. And if he was in urgent need of help or something was seriously wrong, he wouldn't have let her ramble for so long. Of course, that worked out quite nicely. Rauda hadn’t seen Alex in a couple of months and from the look of it, those ‘couple of months’ had, as the Doctor said, been quite a few years for him. She told herself not to sulk; he wasn’t exactly family and apparently he’d had more important things to do. Granted she’d been an orphan at his age, raised by her Chapter instead of her family, but she had been just as lax in maintaining contact with anyone in her eagerness to do what she thought was her calling. Which had turned out to lead to a fairly hefty criminal record and in the long-run a half job with Torchwood, with a very rocky road in between. Even if she had managed to do Robin Hood – for lack of a better word – quite a bit of the galaxy in the one thousand three hundred or so (give or take) years that she’d been knocking around the galaxy for.

But her nostalgia had gotten the better of herself. She did still have to do good on a promise that she’d made, a few weeks before being grounded. Two promises, to be fair. The Doctor had asked that she continue to teach Alex, because all of his free nights were taken up by River Song and he still seemed to feel like Alex needed taking care of as much as Rauda did. Jack, on the other hand, had wanted her to show him a little excitement off-planet, which she obviously couldn’t do right now. Torchwood had been able to give her a few parts, but without access to time and space, she and her TARDIS were stuck here. But if she came good on her promises, then she could easily kill three birds with one stone.

“Tea? Coffee? Juice?” Roda managed to find the kitchen with only minimal difficulty. Her TARDIS made a disapproving sound when she opened the drinks cupboard as suggestion, but Roda just patted the odd girl somewhere near the stove, where the well-meaning machine had left a single empty space in its attempts to make sure that its pilot took care of itself better. She didn’t think that bare spot would last long – she’d come in tonight and find a second blender or a third toaster sitting there. She really had to get her TARDIS to stop taking suggestions from the Doctor’s… “Alcohol? You’re old enough now, I always forget.”

“Redjay.”

“Roda.” It was an instinctive response, as Roda turned on the kettle herself, and it gave an agitated series of pips and squeaks that she took to mean ‘turn me on more often’. “Most people call me Roda.”

“My father doesn’t.”

“No. His language is usually more colourful.” Roda snorted darkly, then waved a scarred hand in Alex’s direction. “Anyway, I never named myself Redjay, I just picked it up. Crossed my timeline without even realising, as it turned out. But my friends call me Roda.” Though of course the Doctor’s previous regeneration had tended towards Ro-Ro, and Jack often shortened it to just Ro, when he was feeling playful. The conclusion that her full name was too long – even though the one she had gone by since the Academy was a shortened one – was unanimous. “Like to think you’re one of them.”

“Roda, then.” Alex’s calm tone dropped for a second, as he reached around her to take a mug out of the cupboard. Roda nodded with a chuckle that it was the one he’d been using when he visited her TARDIS since he was really a Tot; striped red and gold, with a Gryffindor lion up one side. She’d picked it up visiting a theme park years ago. Her own mug already sat beside the kettle, already topped up with coffee grounds and two sugars; lincoln green and bearing a very historically familiar feathered cap. “You’re over a thousand years old.”

“Thank you for making me feel so young.”

“And I’ve not been a child by your standards for over a decade.”

Roda raised her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine.” She left Alex to get his own refreshments – he’d always been this independent, hadn’t he? – and poured half the contents of the kettle into her mug, careful not to let the scalding water splash onto her wrist. “Anyway. What were you needing me for? Is it urgent?” Alex gave her the kind of look that told her was thinking intently. “And if the answer is yes…” She took a drink, then finished her suggestion with apologetic tone, “Do you have access to a TARDIS?”


	2. The Matrix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Gallifrey fell into the Time Lock the original Matrix fell along with it. But if The Seeker hopes to build a replacement, he's going to need to make the most of every resource he can get. Luckily, Roda is in the bargaining market.
> 
> In which the Seeker's construction skills put the Redjay to shame, and had she known where this blossoming friendship was going, she would have done it sooner.

The planet was very… Gallifrey. Not Gallifreyan. It was Gallifrey, at least in appearance, right down to the core. The similarity almost frightened Roda; in seven hundred years of exile, she had only ever returned to her home planet twice before, and both times at the behest of others. She had never forgotten the soft red grass or the orange glow of the sky but she had put it out of mind, a memory of something she had seen in a photograph and not with her own eyes. Roda wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see, when the Seeker had told her he had a planet of his own modelled off old Gallifrey… At least she knew she hadn’t expected this. Though of course when she thought about it, she'd only really known the Seeker for three years, and there were big gaps between when she saw him outside of when she'd been teaching him about Gallifrey in his younger months - he'd probably visited more frequently and over a longer stretch of time than it had been for her, all things considered. She supposed he'd had a lot of time to perfect things.

Her fingers trailed along a smooth wall, no sharp corners or nicks in the material that was as much Gallifrey as the tall red grass ringing the circular courtyard they had landed in or the orange glow, darker in the early morning. She had stepped out of Alex’s – the Seeker’s – spaceship a few steps before him, but lingered around the columns and architecture, neck craned up to read the High Gallifreyan etched above the grand double-doors by which he hovered. The Seeker let Roda hover, though she supposed he probably thought she was waving time. Roda could still enjoy a new place as much as the next Time Lord. She waved a hand to tell him to be patient, speaking the words – a motto? – out loud.

"That's in Gallifreyan."

"Yes."

Roda nodded to small markings on the door. "And so's that."

"Yes."

"And-"

"Roda, I do speak Gallifreyan." The Seeker gave Roda a knowing look, and she shot him a mock-innocent look in return.

"I was only going to ask where the bathroom was."

"Really?"

Roda didn't speak for a long pause, then laughed and shrugged and looked back up at the motto on the arch. "Alright, that's in Gallifreyan too. Seek and ye shall find." Her gaze remained on the interlocking circles for a few more seconds, before following the path of a tall, slim tower in the centre of the largest circle that made up the installation. “Poetic.” She turned, giving the exterior one last, nostalgic look-over before finally joining the Seeker at the door and following him inside. After all, she was here to help the Seeker out with a block in his research, not to sight-see. His plan was to build a new Matrix… Well, he couldn’t have chosen a more apt place. A frown still creased her brow. “Though if you ask me the whole ‘this is my very own planet’ thing is…”

“My father’s kind of affair.” The Seeker nodded, reading Roda’s mind. “I know. But unlike him I have no interest in stealing a planet just because I can.” Roda raised an eyebrow, otherwise keeping her thoughts to herself on the subject of the Master and his particular hobbies. “There needs to be a reason.” The Seeker shut the door behind himself and the Redjay with an ominous thud, and gestured across the large circular greeting room, his blue coat billowing in the draught with an uncharacteristic air of the dramatic. Roda fell into step beside him obediently, making for one particular room in the balcony-rimmed ring. “Which is why I built my laboratory.”

Back to business. Very the Seeker. While Roda liked to take in everything, much like the Doctor, whether it was important or not, the Seeker was good at working out what was important to look at and heading straight for it. After a moment’s thought, Roda realised that was something new about this regeneration. That, and he had a swift stride, and was taller than her now, with red hair and a dress sense that seemed almost a cross between his father and his uncle; crisp white shirt and starched trousers underneath the earlier-noted flapping coat. Roda chose not to make that observation either. Roda – short, with auburn hair, skin that had people in Wales asking if she was from the Mediterranean, and too many freckles – was the polar opposite. Her clothes included a waistcoat-and-shirt-ensemble of cream with red corduroy, and loose-fitting brown trousers over equally loose-fitting pumps.

“Yes. The lab, that you built, on a planet, that you terraformed.”

“Is something wrong?”

“You’re still a teenager by Time Lord standards.” The Seeker scowled exasperatedly.

“I made this when I was a teenager.”

“And I was crashing TARDISes when I was a teenager. You shouldn’t be so good at things.” Roda fancied that the Seeker smiled to himself despite his impatience, preening at the compliment. She grinned back. “When I was your age I was bailing myself out of prison.” The Seeker rolled his eyes, and Roda waggled a finger. “Don’t start, mister. From what you told me on the way here, you weren’t the most careful two hundred year old either.” The Seeker’s features darkened and as his pace picked up once more Roda sighed and, blinking, stepped out of the way of a small robot that seemed to be intent on cleaning up the grass that her shoes had left on the doorstep. “But, business.”

“Thank you.”

“What exactly do you need to know?”

Roda had agreed to help the Seeker in this endeavour for a number of reasons. Most personal was the fact that she hadn’t been able to get close to a functional Matrix for over seven hundred years. One of the prerequisites of exile was having her link severed, and she ran her hand over the binding in her arm subconsciously. Second in her reasons for agreeing to follow him to an unmarked planet was that she’d promised the Doctor and Jack that she would keep an eye on the Seeker when they couldn’t, and teach him what they couldn’t. This certainly fit both bills. And third, her TARDIS needed repairs, and she couldn’t get the parts to finally get the old girl back to working order on her own. The Seeker had agreed to give her a lift, since the Doctor was busy, and the Master was out of the question.

The Seeker didn’t answer right away, but at the end of the long opening hallway, having passed a number of doors that The Seeker and Roda had both ignored, were another set of double doors that the Seeker pushed open proudly. Roda could feel the telepathy dampeners and the electricity in the air almost immediately, and clenched her jaw to stop it from dropping. To her dubiously trained eye, the work he’d done already was more than just a little impressive…! He had a lot of equipment laid out in neat piles surrounded by just as smart piles of books, data slates and scrolls that apparently made up the bulk of his research so far.

Roda’s hand tightened around the strap of her satchel, briefly tensing to remember she’d left her quiver and bow in the TARDIS and was carrying only her pistol, in the waistband of her trousers. She’d grabbed a couple of the more obvious books from her library on the way out, figuring that once she knew what he already had, she could go back and get more if he needed them. She nodded around the large clinical room, whistling through her teeth, and was about to pat The Seeker on the back when he steepled his fingers in front of his chest and looked Roda straight in the eye, ready.

“To be honest,” the Seeker’s eyes narrowed, “I’m not quite sure. It’s more a matter of what I’ve already worked out, and what you can add to it.” He paused, choosing his words carefully, and picked up a lattice of cables and flashing lights not unlike a computer’s motherboard, “I’m trying to create something in miniature first, semi-functional. After all there’s only four Time Lords to go in this Matrix right now and – what.”

It wasn’t a question. It was the Seeker noticing something. Roda shrugged overly casually, wondering what look on her face had given her away. “I’m cut off from the last Matrix. I don’t think I connect to your one.”

“Well, I’m clever. I’ll make my Matrix better.” The two of them nodded to each other, and the brief personal moment was passed over. Roda folded her arms across her chest thoughtfully and sat up on the edge of the nearest counter. The Seeker blinked momentarily at her cavalier choice of perch. “The point is. I know the theory. I know what needs to be done. I’ve read so many books, and I’ve ran so many tests. But I don’t know what it should be like.” He gestured conclusively. “Only a Time Lord can tell me that.”

“Why not ask your father? Or your uncle?”

“A stupid idea, and busy.” Roda couldn’t argue with either explanation. “You’re more likely to help me out, especially if you’re grounded,” Roda sighed, “And you’re older than both of them.”

“Gee thanks.”

“You know what I mean, Redjay.” Admitting defeat Roda reached into her satchel, handing over the heavy leather book, saved from her father’s library centuries ago. It had been bound and printed on Gallifrey, years before both of them had been born, and its age showed despite Roda’s repairs. The Seeker held it gently atop his hands, looking excited. “I’ve not seen this one.”

“A dissertation of the Matrix, with illustrations.” Roda gave a self-deprecating smile, “The… author’s name faded years ago. I might have more books like them, too, but I’m not making any promises. And so long as you’re careful,” She accentuated the final word with a stern glare, “You’re free to pick my brain to see how I’m cut off from the Matrix. The binding’s done so that I can’t see it myself.” Roda was far from a scientist and had always been a scout and hands-on person, and washing-machined her hands as she moved out of her depth. She was sure she sounded like an idiot. “Maybe you can work backwards.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea.”

The Seeker put his hand to Roda’s arm thoughtfully, his telepathy leading him right to the brand. He hummed before turning away without a second noise, the old book under one arm, to collect up a number of notes and a pen and start writing things down, leaving Roda to wander around on her own devices. As Roda picked up and studied things to the occasional tune of ‘don’t move that’ or ‘hand me that’, the Seeker returned to penning his sudden epiphany, making a collection of new papers and necessary tools over the course of half an hour. He appeared behind Roda when he was finished, clearing his throat pointedly.

“What?”

“I’ll need to borrow this book. And any more you have. And I’ll need to run a few experiments on you. Don’t worry, nothing should go wrong.”

“It’s the ‘should’ that worries me.”

“I told you. I’m good at this.” If not humility, Roda noted somewhat fondly, “I wouldn’t try it if I thought I would injure you.” The Seeker cleared his throat once more and looked directly back at the door over Roda’s shoulder. Roda could take a hint. “I need to work. One of the robots can show you to my spare parts room – I can fix your TARDIS later."

Roda snorted. "I've been fixing my TARDIS myself for seven hundred years now. One of the few subjects I got an alpha grade in, Prydonian Academy year of I-don’t-remember." She paused. "And I've had worse damage. Recently. The only problem this time is your father is…" Roda breathed out through her teeth, “More clever than I am, and generally, a better saboteur. Well.” Roda grinned, not letting herself dwell on a sore point. “TARDISes, anyway.”

The Seeker appraised the other Time Lord for a few seconds, intrigued, before nodding assent. "Then take whatever you need, free of charge. And if you need h-”

Roda interrupted with barely a nod. “I’ll need a ride home, too.”

“Give me a few hours.” The Seeker’s voice had already faded to a near whisper, his attention held elsewhere to conversation. “I need to think.”

Roda turned to leave with a sharp salute, turning on her heels with a playful grin on her face. “I’ll just occupy myself, then.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” The door shut behind the Redjay. The Seeker licked the nib of his pen. By the time he had started on his third sentence, his head shot up like a spring and he stared in horror at the sealed door. “What do you mean occupy yourself?”


	3. The Matrix (Bonus)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another slice of life scene from 'The Matrix' that I couldn't fit into the full story but found in the back of my notebook.

"I could have given you so many books..."

Roda was talking half to herself when the figure came up behind her, and said: “Could have?” She turned around, surprised to see the Seeker hovering quietly in the doorway. It was funny that she’d relaxed her guard enough to be crept up on. She rested her head in her hands, studying the smaller room that she had found herself in. It was comfortably small (or perhaps she was just comparing that to his main laboratory), and not claustrophobically so. Roda hadn’t been good with small spaces for quite a few regenerations now, but the Master had only exacerbated that problem during The Year That Never Was.

She’d only been in the room for a minute or two when Alex had caught up to her, but her thoughts had wandered further than her feet. Where they’d settled made little sense; the room was full of cricket equipment, very much Earth-based and reminding her more of one of the Doctor’s past selves more than anything else. No, Roda had barely noticed the sports gear because her head was in the second largest library she’d ever seen, a few metres of red grass and orange stone from the gates of the Citadel.

"I lost the library years ago."

The Seeker had been studying a red cricket ball with what looked like nostalgia, and placed it down neatly on a shelf before answering. There was no judgemental edge to his words, but a sort of weariness that came from living with the rest of his species.

"You didn't pitch yours into the swimming pool as well.”

"Not the library in my TARDIS.” Roda shook her head, laughing. “That one's still there. Last time I checked. Which reminds me, I should get my hands on a copy of the eighth Harry Potter book.” She shook her head again, this time more like a dog, forcing herself to focus once more, “No, the other one. On Gallifrey. I could've snuck back for you but – wait.” Roda’s hands splayed out in front of her dramatically, jazz-handing. It had taken two years for her to be so cavalier about her home planet. “No Gallifrey."

""You...” The Seeker seemed surprised. Roda had only ever given him vague details about her history, and though the idea that she was somewhat kleptomaniac was a given one… “Stole from libraries frequently?"

"Oh, no. I inherited the library.” Roda rubbed her jaw, poking at a cricket bat with one foot, “My father's lifes' work before he died. I have a business card somewhere. Lots of circles. Anyway, books. I do think I have one or two more lying around you can have. Just not as many as I could have given you.” Roda’s eyes glazed somewhat, her glance far away. Too far away. Alex hummed sympathetically, clearly stricken (more? Roda suspected so) by the loss of so much knowledge. Books, Roda realised – not for the first time – that may never be found again. She’d not thought about her House for years. Roda sniffed, rubbed her face with the back of one hand, and shuffled awkwardly on her feet, speaking overly quickly. “And I can tell you what I remember, like I said, but it's been seven hundred years."

"Since the Time Lock? But you've not changed at all."

"No, no. That's been two years.” She paused, gathering confidence. “Seven years since I was a part of the Matrix." Roda pinched the bridge of her nose, took a deep breath of the kind that suggests a person wants to let a subject drop, and then took the task of changing the subject into her own hands as she gestured around the room. "The Doctor played cricket years ago.” She paused. “You probably know that."

The Seeker nodded. “I have a Cambridge Blue.” He looked over his shoulder, back out the door, but seemed to decide that having this conversation wouldn’t be too much of a waste of his time. “Have you played?"

"No. The Doctor tried to teach me but apparently I didn't have the patience. Which I remember finding rather cheap.” Roda’s voice rose as she started to cheer up vastly, and grew pleasantly agitated. “That was the first time I'd met that regeneration – fifth, I think. Celery and less hair?” The Seeker nodded confirmation and Roda continued without skipping a beat. The conversation drifted back into uselessness, and Roda just enjoyed the moment. “And his last one had been anything but patient. Did I ever tell you about the time that he…?”


End file.
